Selfish decisions
I am sitting here this afternoon watching the OSU v. Michigan game, and I find myself thinking about how things have changed since last year, and what could have been this year if different decisions were made. Ohio State players made selfish decisions to take tattoos and money that were against NCAA rules. Coaches made selfish decisions to hide this information and protect their players instead of following the rules - and yes I think that was a selfish decision. I think in situations like that, many times it is easier to justify that you are protecting the players, but what they really need is to be taught that breaking the rules has consequences. Telling the truth is hard, but telling a lie or keeping the truth secret typically makes the problem bigger, and is most often a selfish decision.
This reality is even more evident and harsh when you look at the Penn State situation. At Ohio State, the consequences were lost jobs, game suspensions, and were all college football related. At Penn State, the lost jobs and college football related consequences are there, but the real tragedy is lives of young children that were changed by the selfish decisions that were made.
And I look around me and I see selfish decisions being made all over the place - fights over material items on black Friday. Spending money we don't have. Cutting people off in traffic. Accumulating more stuff we don't really need. Working too much and not spending time with people that matter to us. Overeating when there are people starving. Saying things without considering the impact our words have. And when I say this, I am talking to myself as much as anything. Selfish decisions tend to be easy because we know what we want, and we like to satisfy ourselves. But God has called us to be selfless. We can only make selfless decisions when we rely on the Holy Spirit and when we stop and consider the consequences of our decisions. Some consequences are immediate, some take a while. Sometimes consequences affect our future selves. Sometimes they impact people that we know and love. And sometimes those consequences will impact people we will never meet in places far away. But the reality is that each decision we make is like throwing a pebble in a pond and sends out ripples - sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes a mixture of the two. We just need to do the best we can with what we have.
So my challenge to myself this holiday season is to truly consider the impact that my decisions have and to make decisions that have a positive impact. Decisions that glorify God and lift others up rather than ones that just make me more comfortable.
Edit - I was watching The Devil Wears Prada and saw this scene which says exactly what I was trying to say, so I thought I would add the link to this post:
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